The Role of Responsibility in a Free Society

A free society is not sustained by a constitution alone. It depends on habits, incentives, and the often-unseen cultural foundations that make liberty workable in practice. 

Jim Cardoza | April 30, 2026

A free society is not sustained by a constitution alone. It depends on habits, incentives, and the often-unseen cultural foundations that make liberty workable in practice. Laws may define freedom, but it is behavior that determines whether that freedom can survive.

Responsibility is the flip side of liberty. Liberty requires responsible citizens, yet many of our modern institutions -- whether in public policy, education, or criminal justice -- systematically erode the incentives for responsible behavior. When irresponsibility grows, so does the argument for restricting freedom.

This is not speculation -- it is observable in policy debates. Consider firearms. The vast majority of gun owners never commit crimes. Yet when a minority acts irresponsibly or violently, the political response of the Left is not to isolate the offenders; it is to expand restrictions broadly. American philosopher Lysander Spooner pointed out the absurdity of this notion: “To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and lawless.” Nonetheless, the notion persists among gun control supporters and is routinely the knee-jerk reaction to any and all shooting incidents.

Irresponsibility provides big government advocates a rationale to expand state powers by enacting more regulation. It is a precursor to achieving a larger goal, which may explain policies that promote it. The welfare state is a great example of this. Great Society programs were sold to the public as a means of........

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